I was 50 minutes into the 1949 adaptation of The Great Gatsby when I said a little prayer;
“O dear lord. Pardon my condescending heart… But I feel sorry for people who dont read.” Especially when I read a book, and then I see its film adaptation.
But then, I found myself defending myself…. oh, how human of me… right?
I told myself; It’s not condescension… it’s the ache of someone who knows what the full feast tastes like and then watches others settle for crumbs.
When you read a book, you carry the author’s voice, the nuance, the internal worlds, and the slow bloom of meaning. A film, no matter how brilliant, can only give a slice of that. So when I see an adaptation, I feel the gap. I see everything that was left behind… but I love films… so I keep doing this to myself… over and over again… how pathetic.
I guess I am not pitying them as people… I think I am grieving what they are missing out on.
I have always wanted to read The Great Gatsby. Over the years, I found it was a common and popular material in western literature.
Two reasons why I have never read it is one, I never did literature in my secondary school days, and two, The Great Gatsby isn’t a popular selection in the curriculum here in Nigeria.
I finally read it yesterday. It was a lazy Sunday, and I chewed on it from morning, and by bedtime, I was done.
I was carried away by the beautiful way it was narrated and by the witty humor, so much that I didn’t even know when tragedy hit me. It was a complete shift. A full 360 degrees.
I loved what F. Scott Fitzgerald did to me.
Do I wish I read it sooner? No. I think I read at the right moment of my life.
It was worth every page.
I spent most of my night reading reviews and literary analysis on this book… that’s how much I loved it.
For anyone who has read it, care to share anything with me?
